"No… I don't think it will be… necessary."
To my surprise, the girl actually didn't take the bait. But her action didn't save her from the trouble either. Instead of simply ridiculing all my words and comparing them to the pile of trash, she actually backed off!
If her role today was that of the true arrogant young… mistress? Maiden? If her role today was that of a true arrogant young master of the female kind, then she clearly didn't do her damned homework.
"Figures… Now, will you kindly back away so that I could take part in the selections, or should we talk about some interesting matters in the open after all?"
*Congratulations!*
*Host managed to clear the target off his back!*
*Hidden quest fulfilled on the first try!*
*Tripling the reward of the usual task!*
* Hosts' creative cleaning skill increased by three skill points!*
*Creative cleaning level 2 (2/3)
At this point, I couldn't be surprised anymore. To think that I had to clean the entire damned prison cell and come up with creative ways to accomplish this task properly when just by bashing a group of youngsters could bring me triple the benefits? To be honest, it was so damn easy that it was already turning boring for me!
Ill luck. It seemed that I would have to speedrun the initial part of living in this world to find some events that would actually prove challenging! Sadly, the girl that seemed to be the source of all the whispers negatively set towards me didn't pursue the topic but obediently backed out instead, allowing me to move directly to a simple desk with the very first adult outside of the prison guard that I saw in this world sitting behind it.
"Name?"
And here I earned a mouthful for my earlier wishes to make this new life of mine a bit more challenging. How the heck was I supposed to reply to this question? Lev, like my earthy mother named me? Lairan like my organisational family baptised me? Flame dancing on the tombs of his enemies like I always wanted to be called or maybe Piking Bull like my nickname in the organisation made for the purpose of keeping all the others name safely away from the government databases?
*Host: Pavlo Oegari*
*Level: 8*
For the very first time ever since I first opened my eyes in this world, this strange entity that occupied a part of my mind - otherwise I would have no ideas how to explain its ability to show images in front of my eyes - turned out to be at least a bit useful.
"I'm Pavlo Oegari."
Given how the man behind the desk didn't even bat an eye when the entire drama was happening just a few meters away from him, it was clear that trying to act cocky with him would only bite me right in my shapely bottom way sooner than even with all my projections would guess it would.
"Age?"
Firing question after question as if this was some kind of interrogation, the man behind the desk actually managed to irk a bit of my anger. While I didn't expect to be treated in some special way - even despite how clearly I… or rather the person that everyone here took me for stood above the rest of the crowd - a bit of human approach wouldn't hurt him either!
"And how old do I look like?"
Instead of lashing at the person angrily, I attempted to use the humouristic approach. Sadly, the man behind the desk only moved his eyes up for a bit, took a glance on me before lowering his head back to its previous position.
"Eighteen."
Reciting as he wrote those words on the sheet of paper in front of himself, the man actually managed to shake me by my core.
Eighteen da heck! It's been nearly eighteen years since I was fucking eighteen!
Sadly, despite the turmoil in my head and soul, I could only patiently wait and answer all the other questions that the man had for me, including but not limited to stuff like the favourite food, preferred position during intimate meetings… Nah, that was just a projection of my bored mind after I had to go through nearly a hundred simple questions testing my general knowledge. Thankfully, with my mind immersing itself in the problem of my current age, it seemed as if my lips and throat did their job of answering those apparently simple question even without my mind overseeing them properly.
And to be honest, it was quite a huge relief. After all, how the heck I was supposed to know what was the fourth clause of the sixth cultivation rule? Or how many stages of cultivation there is before one actually becomes a proper cultivator?
Judging from the reactions of the people around me, neither the questions nor the answers were unusual or hard, forcing me to actually make a mental note to return to the memory of this event so that I could study all the questions and the answers for the bottom line of the local common sense.
"Okay, you can enter the array right now. Do your best."
Sending me off with the least emotional wishing of good luck that I have ever heard in my over thirty years long life, the man behind the desk pointed at a small stone circle with an artistic set of swirling lines and shapes engraved on it.
And I read enough of the trashy cultivation novels back in the years of my stupidity to know what this place meant!
Moving forward without any hesitation shown to the outside world, I could feel the excitement and actually worry mixing in my soul. But to my surprise, nothing that great happened to me once I stepped inside the array. After the lines engraved to the stone below my feet flashed with dim light for a few times, a pole suddenly rose from the very centre of the stone. Once it reached the height of my chest, its tip started to swell, quickly reaching the volume of a proper, personal barrel of beer that I could sometimes spot in supermarkets before big events happening in the city.
"I guess I need to punch the heck out of it."
Saying those words as much to myself as to gauge the reaction of the examiner behind the desk to them, I moved my hands around a bit. Even though that strange official claimed that I looked like eighteen years old youngster, even if it was actually true, then my adult mind still knew that only an idiot would attempt any excessive movements without a proper warm-up!
Only once I felt the familiar heat flowing through my veins along the skin of my arms, I looked at the target again. Instead of figuring out some kind of elaborate and theatrical move that would only make me look like an idiot if there was an actual martial artist in the crowd, I simply stood about two feet away from the target.
Curling my hands into a fist, I made sure to hide my thumb below the rest of my fingers. Not only it could save me from crying from the pain caused by its joints knocking over after a single serious hit, but it also created a pleasant bulge at the height of my middle finger, allowing for the force of my attack to be way more concentrated.
Even though I never intended to strike the target with the front of my fist.
Taking a simple swing as if I was about to knock the head of the nail with an invisible hammer, I swung my hand downwards at the target. Ignoring the moment where my imaginary hammer would collide with the target, I jerked my shoulder a bit while pulling the non-leading leg of mine to the back.
Bonk.
This simple way of attacking was something that I learned in the most brutal way imaginable for a friendly training within the confines of a single organisation. After receiving hundreds of hits executed with this biomechanic based technique, I learned to respect how this apparently simple change in the way of executing one's fist-hit could increase the strength of the attack by manifolds!
"Qi level…"
With the voice of the man behind me breaking my immersion in the pleasant feeling of using this unpopular, earthy martial art once again, I managed to shed this self-stun from my mind and turn to face the examiner.
"His Qi level is only eight. That means Pavlo has yet to reach the level of a novice!"
As soon as the verdict came out, the entire crowd erupted with all sorts of reactions. Knowing that only the examiner and the girl that I defeated in the war of words before would know the true meaning of this information, I quickly scouted the girl's face from the crowd.
"Shameless… To hide his damned power by such a large margin just to get more resources…"
The sounds of her angry yet silent ramblings somehow managed to reach my ears, just as if someone helped her voice to traverse through the distance unhindered by the noise made by the crowd.
"Martial art level… forty-six!"